Ordinary Living

Author:

Adams, Barbara

Year:

2004

Pages:

108

ISBN:

0-7734-3543-3978-0-7734-3543-8

Price:

119.95

These poems were written over a ten-year period, and tell the story of a woman’s life following the death of her husband. The strangeness of being a widow and living alone after a long marriage leads to an emotional roller-coaster. Her husband continues to be present in her inner life, haunting her with guilt and deeds that cannot be undone. Writing about him, and about her mother, father and aunt helps exorcise their ghosts. The woman rediscovers sex and desire in lovers. Yet, a feeling of displacement and alienation continues to follow her to Mexico and to New York City where she worked and where she had been born. Finally, a sense of renewal and reconciliation comes to her in art, dream and myth.